


The work is hard, but the soul can bear it

by KatyaZel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Complicated Relationships, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, M/M, Machiavellian Dumbledore, Mania, Mental Illness, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), POV Remus Lupin, Remus goes to therapy, surprisingly also some fluff, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19122307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaZel/pseuds/KatyaZel
Summary: Remus and Sirius live at Grimmauld Place together for a year. Weasleys and Harry and others come and go; the two of them remain. Sirius is not well, and Remus takes care of him as best he can, but it is not easy. If only Dumbledore would let them leave that damn house.





	The work is hard, but the soul can bear it

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick warning--there is some obliquely referenced suicidal ideation, and some mentioned physical violence. Also, plenty of poor mental health, but they're working on it!

They were too used to it, to the solitude, and Remus wondered what would come. As the weather grew warmer they spent more time on the roof, and that’s where this July evening found them. Remus absently twisted a strand of Sirius’s hair as the other man lay with his head on Remus’s chest. “Sirius?” he murmured. 

“Yes?”

Remus paused. “When everyone arrives...When the house fills up. Will I be staying in your room? Or sleeping somewhere else?”

Sirius groaned.  _ “God,  _ Moony, can’t we think about that later?”

“There almost is no later,” he laughed. Checking his watch, he added, “I reckon we have fewer than twelve hours before the first of the Weasleys arrive.” Remus looked fondly at Sirius, whose eyes were shut tightly. “Do you want me to reason it out, or do you have an opinion?”

Sirius shrugged as best he could, being so very horizontal. “Of course I have an opinion, but I don’t know what it is yet. Why don’t you talk until I disagree with you.”

Remus grinned. “Well, neither of us know the Weasleys very well. They might be narrowminded, although it doesn’t seem terribly likely to me, given the four children I taught. There is also the chance that we simply don’t want a houseful of near strangers to know every detail about us. Then again, hiding this feels like far more trouble than it would be worth. Or at least, a lot of trouble.” He pauses and thinks about the decade and a half that he had to grow more confident in who he was, while Sirius sat in Azkaban being reminded of nothing but his worst moments and his own self hate. “But I understand if you would rather we not share.”

Sirius shifted onto his side a little, facing the city skyline. “How about,” he began, sounding as though he were giving Remus a gift just by entertaining the conversation, “How about you, so as to free up as many rooms for our many guests as you can, are sleeping on the sofa in my bedroom.”

“There isn’t a sofa in your bedroom, though.”

“Christ, Moony, you won’t  _ actually  _ be on a fucking sofa.”

Remus smiled down at Sirius. “It won’t be a very convincing lie, then.”

Sirius scoffed. “And  _ who  _ is going to be checking my room and taking a bloody furniture inventory?” It was a fair point; Remus supposed that Sirius could keep anyone out of his space that he wanted to. “Now, before we have to start being all  _ subtle,  _ do you think there’s anywhere else in this house we haven’t desecrated yet?”

“Lord,” Remus snorted. “Nowhere. Nowhere that Kreacher wouldn’t be horrified, anyway.”

“And you’re sure you won’t let me kill him?” All it took was a look from Remus for Sirius to continue, “Yes, yes, I know. Dignity of all beings, and all that. But if he mentions Regulus one more fucking time…”

 

Remus liked Arthur Weasley almost immediately. Molly was quite a  _ lot,  _ especially at first, and seemed to feel entitled to care about Remus far more than he felt strictly necessary, but he liked her, too. It was a bit awkward to greet Ginny, Ron, Fred, and George, none of them quite knowing the level of formality to strike. Or rather, Ginny and Ron and Remus felt awkward; Fred and George, as jovial as ever, seemed impervious to the discomfort. 

Arthur shook first Sirius’s hand, and then Remus’s. “So good to finally meet you both,” he told them, something in his manner a reminder of his own pure blood upbringing. A sort of comfort with formality, perhaps. “I’ll apologize in advance for my family’s idiosyncrasies; I love them dearly, but I know as well as anyone that they can be a bit much.” Molly had already swept into the kitchen to examine it for fitness, and Fred and George were pushing all of Ron’s buttons. Glancing over his shoulder as his sons bickered, Arthur shrugged helplessly but with a broad grin. “You’ll get to like them, I promise.”

Sirius laughed, seeming to dredge up his own fine manners from where they were buried under twenty years of disuse. “Rest assured, Mr. Weasley, your family is already bringing more life than this house has known in decades. They can only be welcome here.” Remus glanced over and saw Sirius fairly radiating normalcy as though by sheer will. 

“Please, call me Arthur. I’m not  _ that  _ much older than you, after all,” he laughed. It was a warm thing, a beautiful laugh, and Remus felt certain that he wouldn’t mind having this man in their home.

 

The Weasleys settled in, before long adding to their ranks Hermione and Harry. Order meetings, too, brought visitors, and Grimmauld Place seemed as altered from its lonely, decrepit self as Sirius did in company. Unlike the house, though, Sirius was putting on a show, and no one really knew how much except for Remus. They knew he was restless, and maybe lonely; they knew he fought with Molly and Kreacher and wanted to absolutely murder Snape; but no one else in the house held him as he sobbed, talked him down from the height of his mania, forced him to eat at his lowest lows.

Perhaps they glimpsed it the first time the portrait began to scream. It was only the Weasleys’ second day at Grimmauld Place, and Ginny’s high-pitched scream woke Walburga.  _ “A nest of blood-traitors! Swarms of miscreants feeding off my home, sacrileging this noble house…”  _ Remus and Sirius had been reading over a letter from Dumbledore, sitting in the kitchen, when she started. Sirius stood so quickly his chair fell over, and his face grew blank. Glancing back at him, Remus rushed out into the main room.

Ginny was standing, head tilted back as she tamped a bloody nose and tried to explain. “I was just walking down the stairs, and I  _ tripped  _ on the  _ house elf _ …” Arthur and Molly were trying desperately to silence the portrait by magic; Remus shoved past them and yanked on the drapes to shut her up.

He turned and saw all the Weasleys looking in shock and confusion at the portrait. “She does that,” he explained, shrugging and smiling weakly. “We try to be pretty quiet.” His gaze flitted past them all and landed on Sirius, leaning against the door frame and staring at him. His eyes were wide, his breathing labored, and his face cracked open in the worst smile he owned, the one that said  _ I’m not here I’m not here tell me I’m not here. _

Remus rushed to him, brushing past the twins, and gripped his forearm. All eyes now turned to Sirius, who was rapidly dissipating, and the shock and confusion turned to concern. As casually as he could, he led Sirius and said, “Were you going to show me that book? In your room?” The other man stumbled behind Remus all the way upstairs, nearly choking.

 

Hermione, cleverer even than she was given credit for, likely knew everything. One night in August found her and Remus washing up in the kitchen alone. It had been a stormy day within Grimmauld Place. When Remus arrived home for dinner, there seemed to be at least a dozen stewing, unspoken arguments, and no two people seemed particularly glad to be in the same house. Even Arthur’s usual paternal calm was missing. 

Remus, of course, was most attuned to Sirius, who snipped at Molly throughout the dinner and barely engaged with anyone’s attempts to converse with him, even Harry. As soon as the meal was over, Remus tried to talk to him, but he stormed upstairs, leaving Molly thin-lipped and Remus at a loss.

In the kitchen, he asked Hermione mildly, “What happened today? I saw no indication at breakfast that open war would break out.”

Hermione laughed. “Well, shortly after breakfast, it did. Let’s see, Mrs. Weasley laid out the cleaning schedule for the day, which never puts anyone in a good mood. And today she wanted to clean out Sirius’s and his brother’s old rooms, which Sirius was adamantly against. So was Kreacher, I think, because he paced that hallway the rest of the day muttering about  _ master Regulus.  _ And so Sirius was in a state, and Molly’s plans were ruined for the day. Then, of course, he ignored everyone else all day, including when Harry wanted to talk to him, and so Harry was short with Ron. And Mrs. Weasley was short with Ginny, and Fred and George were happy to push everyone’s buttons. And then Mr. Weasley, I think, had a particularly unpleasant encounter with Percy at work today.”

Remus whistled. “Quite a day here, then. For such a big house, bad moods certainly seem to spread quickly.” He sighed to himself and wished he had been there for Sirius.

Hermione shot him a glance. “Oh, and in the afternoon, the portrait got to screaming, too.” Remus knew how much that always affected Sirius, and he ran a hand through his hair. Hermione continued. “I found Sirius, after that. On the stairs.” Her voice was calm in a way that indicated the opposite feeling. “I took him to your room. He was…” she didn’t finish.

Remus exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Hermione. I’m sorry you had to do that.”

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes as she stacked clean plates. “Was she...His mother must have been very awful to him, I think.”

He laughed without humor. “That’s an understatement.”

She nodded. “I figured. And then, the war, and Azkaban...he’s quite unwell, isn’t he?”

She was too wise. A fifteen year old shouldn’t have to bear thirty years of Black family trauma. “Yes,” Remus replied simply. “Quite.”

“But you know how to help?” This took him by surprise, as she looked at him through slightly narrow eyes. “I mean, he seems much better when you’re around.”

Remus considered her, and answered, “He and I have been friends for twenty years. We know each other. To some extent, yes, I know how to help when he’s feeling...that way.” He didn’t add that he felt less and less helpful as the months wore on and Sirius’s mind wore out.

Hermione nodded again. “Yes, you have been  _ friends _ for a long time, haven’t you?” She was trying to ask without asking, holding his gaze and raising her eyebrows ever so slightly.

Remus burst out laughing. “We certainly have, Hermione. You really are too perceptive for your own good, aren’t you.” They shared a smile, both on the same page. 

“I’m glad he has you,” she said softly, looking downwards. “I’m glad Harry has both of you.”

 

Summer ended and the house emptied, save the occasional Order meeting. Sirius grew quieter and Remus often found him walking slowly through every room in the house without destination. When he could, he would gently guide Sirius to the kitchen or the bedroom, to cook or read or talk or simply hold each other.

“I can’t believe this is my life,” Sirius said one day, without preamble. He was standing in what had been his father’s office, and when Remus had lightly touched his shoulder, Sirius had flinched mightily. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t. It’s like I never left.”

Remus felt unutterably sad. He often did, that fall, but he fought with all he had not to return to his own depression. Sirius teased him for diligently going to therapy every week--“If you want to  _ talk  _ for an hour, I’m right here and a lot cheaper.”--but Remus knew he had to keep up with it. It hurt to leave the house, knowing Sirius would be left alone with Kreacher, but he did so as much as he felt he could.

Remus had been running errands and going on missions for the Order since the prior spring, but in October, Dumbledore sent him on his first prolonged mission to the werewolves. He would be gone for at least several weeks, and he shuddered to think what that time might do to Sirius. 

He told him one night as they lay in bed. He’d been putting it off, but finally turned to face Sirius and said, “I need to leave soon. For Dumbledore.” He rubbed his thumb on Sirius’s cheekbone. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

Sirius grew tense, but said nothing for a long moment. Finally he let out a shaky laugh. “Shit, Moony,” was all he said.

“He’s sending me to the werewolves,” Remus continued. “Just like last time, huh?”

At that, Sirius propped himself up on his elbow and his face grew stormy. “No way. You can’t do that again, it nearly killed you. Who does he think he is, asking you for this again?”

Remus was too tired for that. “Pads...we’ve decided. We know what’s important to us. This work.”

“Well, maybe that’s what’s important for  _ you,  _ but I only have one thing in my fucking life and that’s you. You  _ can’t _ just go and…” Remus felt the weight, the enormous pressure of being Sirius Black’s sole lifeline. “Moony, please.” It was so desperately said.

“I’ll be  _ back,  _ Sirius. It’s not forever. Just a few weeks.”

 

It was only a few weeks at a time, but every return saw Sirius worse than when he’d left. He wrote a dozen letters to Dumbledore, trying in vain to convince him that Sirius had to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Dumbledore’s answer was always the same.

Grimmauld Place grew grimmer. Remus returned in early December one night, ready to fall asleep without changing. It had been an exhausting week, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up with Sirius and fall asleep. 

Instead, he walked in to find Sirius, with an empty bottle tossed carelessly to the ground, in a shouting match with his mother’s portrait. It was hard to distinguish the words as the two strong-headed Blacks faced off. Remus approached Sirius. “Padfoot,” he said, and then repeated himself more firmly. Sirius whirled around and stumbled a little.

_ “And your sodomite werewolf slinks back in again, preying on you and your gullibility--”  _ Remus slammed the drapes over the portrait. 

He just stared at Sirius helplessly. “Why?”

Sirius laughed and fell into Remus. “I can finally tell her everything I ever thought without worrying about what she’ll do and that’s so  _ freeing,  _ Moony. Will you--you’re so cold. Do you want to have a go at her?” He giggled weakly.

As exhaustion combined with pity Remus fought back his tears. “Let’s go to bed.”

 

He was in Northern Ireland when Arthur was attacked. He didn’t hear about it for several days. Normally, he and Sirius didn’t write each other when he was on missions like this, for a number of reasons, but he got an owl relaying the awful news.  _ He’ll be okay though, at St. Mungo’s, and they’re all staying here for Christmas, won’t that be marvelous? Hanging up some mistletoe just for you. _ Remus determined to get home as soon as he could, but a disciple of Greyback’s started hunting him, and then it was the moon, and so by the time he could return it was the twenty-third of December. He staggered in the door at half-past three in the morning and stopped in his tracks, a slow grin spreading over his face. 

The house was beautiful for once. They had decorated every inch, made the cold walls lively, and a wonderful, spiced smell was drifting up from the kitchen. Remus shrugged off his coat and drifted downstairs, where Sirius was bouncing in front of the oven. “Hi there,” he greeted. 

Sirius beamed, and before even speaking, rushed over to Remus and kissed him like he’d been saving up for it. Finally, breathless, he said, “I missed you.” Remus laughed, and Sirius kissed him again, trying to catch the laughter.

“You certainly seem to be in high spirits,” Remus observed, almost collapsing into a chair. 

Sirius was kinetic. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re here, it’s Christmas, the house is full, Arthur will be okay. I’m spending  _ Christmas  _ with my  _ godson.  _ Do you know how good that feels?” He opened the oven; there was a tray of biscuits slowly rising. Remus noticed at least four other trays cooling throughout the kitchen. “We got him a gift, by the way. The books you recommended, the ones you told me about, I asked Tonks if she would grab them for me. What happened to your arm? Let me help.” He perched on the table and began healing Remus as he chatted.

Remus didn’t want to think about what Sirius’s manic energy meant, in the long run; he could consider it tomorrow, or after Christmas. Tonight he just wanted to bask in it, so different from the last time he’d seen him. He knew that no matter how  _ good  _ Sirius seemed now, one extreme of the pendulum would be horribly mirrored by another. But that night, and through the holiday, he ignored all he knew and just enjoyed Sirius’s high spirits.

 

Remus had his share of frustrations with Molly Weasley, most due to her fundamental misunderstanding of Sirius, but he loved her through it. So on Christmas morning, when he entered the kitchen to see her crying and the twins trying fruitlessly to lighten the mood, his heart dropped. Softly, he said to the boys, “I’ll take this, Fred, George.” 

Molly sniffed and tried to pull herself together. “I’m sorry, Remus, I’m fine, really--”

He smiled and shook his head, guiding her to a chair and sitting next to her. “It’s okay, Molly. Talk to me. Is it Arthur?”

“It’s not--not Arthur, it’s--Percy--” she let out a sob. “He didn’t even write a note, he just sent back his gift, and he hasn’t asked after his father at all, and I just--I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Nothing,” Remus said sharply. More gently, he continued. “This isn’t your fault, Molly. None of it.”

“But I’m his  _ mother,”  _ she insisted. “I’m supposed to--I should have-- _ why won’t he visit Arthur?”  _

Remus said nothing. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Finally, when her tears quieted, he spoke. “Percy is an adult, and he’s making his own decisions. I  _ know  _ you raised him well because I’ve met your other children. It’s no failing on your part, I promise.” He inhaled. “But he’s young, and he’s making the choices he thinks he has to. I would argue that he’s very wrong, but…he sees some truth. It’s  _ dangerous _ to be in the Order, Molly, and you know it better than anyone.” 

Molly laughed weakly. “I’m not asking him to be in the Order. I’m asking him to  _ speak  _ to us. To visit his father in the hospital.”

Remus felt his heart break. It was hard to cradle everyone’s hurt sometimes, but she needed this from him. “You’re right. There’s nothing I can say that would take away the pain he’s causing, because you’re right. It’s terrible, and I’m sorry.”

Molly sniffed again. “How did you get through it?” she whispered. “The first time. Being in the Order...Fighting...I can’t stand that my whole family is in so much danger. I just want to...I want to take them all away. I guess I want to do what Percy does, pretend the whole thing isn’t happening. How did you  get through it then?”

Remus sighed deeply, giving himself time to formulate an answer. “I almost didn’t, Molly. At first it was all camaraderie, a higher calling. I was fighting alongside my best friends and we were teenagers. But people started dying, and I was...well, my missions were never  _ easy,  _ let’s say. But I tried to remember that it wasn’t about me. How did I get through it? I  _ had  _ to. People were dying and things were bleak. I had to try.”

Molly looked at him with all that love she held, and he didn’t mind anymore if she thought she could be a mother to him. He wondered if that weren’t the best gift he could give her--to let her do so. He spoke up again. “There was a while, then, that I didn’t speak to my parents, either.” It had been hard, and he had worried for them constantly, but during the last few months of the war he had cut off contact. To protect them, he had told himself at the time, though he knew now who he’d been protecting. Softly, he added, “And when it was over, we were okay again.”

Molly gave him half a smile. “Thanks, Remus.”

 

The rest of the holidays passed and Sirius’s high mood fell precipitously as the house threatened to empty once more. Snape’s precisely calculated goading didn’t help things, and Remus had to talk Sirius down several times to keep him from doing something dangerous. Once the children went back to school and the Weasleys went home, Sirius sunk deep into himself.

It hurt Remus every time like a fresh wound. He grew used to seeing Sirius drunk in the middle of the day, grew used to frequent shouting matches with the portrait, grew used to sleeping alone. He felt it eat him from the inside out. “Is it healthy to live with him?” his therapist gently inquired. “Look out for yourself, love,” his mother told him, concern on her face. “I don’t understand why you took the bastard back,” Meredith said as she shook her head in disbelief and stern disapproval.

When he himself doubted his choice, Remus would cultivate emotional remove within himself. He imagined himself a nurse tending an unknown patient: the work was hard but the soul could bear it. It was how he got through the worst of it, when Sirius lay curled on the floor, when Sirius hadn’t slept for four days, when Sirius hurled insults, sharper for knowledge of the target, at Remus. Remus would build a moat around himself; he could see Sirius’s state, strategize and deal with it, without allowing it to infringe upon his own.

And he  _ knew  _ with so much certainty it hurt that if he could just get Sirius out of that damned house, things would look up. What kind of life was it, to live fifteen years in terror, five in freedom, a dozen in Azkaban, and then to return to the very home that terrorized you? Remus wrote letter after letter to Dumbledore, growing more truculent as the weeks passed. He stopped after receiving one particularly curt reply-- _ Remus, you have always mistaken  _ ought  _ for  _ must  _ and vice versa. Fifteen years without the man who taught you they were the same do not seem to have changed that. Do not move Sirius. --Albus _

It was a bullshit excuse from a man who avoided any interaction with Sirius because he knew he would be proven wrong. In a moment of uncharacteristic anger, Remus incinerated the note.

Sirius stumbled into the room. “Burning something?” He was all dull confusion, no light behind his eyes and no smile crossing his face. Remus balled his fists to keep from punching a wall.

“How would you like to visit my mother?” he asked instead.

 

Since Remus told her, months earlier, the truth about Sirius, Hope had asked regularly whether she might be able to see him. She had always loved him and had never quite managed to believe that he could be guilty of it all. When Remus sent her a quick note-- _ I’d like to bring Sirius to see you when I visit on Sunday-- _ her reply was immediate and overjoyed. 

Sirius, too, brightened considerably at the prospect of not only leaving the house but of seeing Hope. “I can’t believe you finally convinced the old arse to release me, even temporarily,” he said to Remus more than once. 

Remus lied through a smile in response. There was no reason to disabuse Sirius of the notion. Dumbledore would never know. And Sirius was happier than he’d been in months as they prepared to leave that late February morning. 

“Ready?” he asked Sirius, unable to contain his own smile as Sirius bounced on his heels.

_ “Yes.  _ God. Ready to get out, ready to finally see Hope. Yes. Let’s go.”

They disapparated and suddenly found themselves standing in Hope Lupin’s front entry. Sirius looked a little shell-shocked, his eyes darting from corner to corner. “Mum?” Remus called. He led Sirius towards the kitchen, and there was Hope, sitting at the table. She saw the two men and immediately bit her lip as her eyes welled with fifteen years worth of tears. 

She stood, the chair beneath her scraping against the linoleum in vague protest as she rushed over to Sirius. He stared at her, mouth slightly open in disbelief, and then a breathy laugh escaped from him. “Hope. I can’t--I can’t believe this.” And they embraced.

“Sirius Black,” She said into his shoulder. “I have missed you so much.  _ Sirius.”  _ They were both crying, and Remus decided to slip into the next room to give them a moment. 

He was glad he could bring Sirius out of the house, but even this hurt. He should have let them see each other months ago, and the awareness was a sharp pain. He heard Sirius say something that made both him and Hope laugh, and Remus was overcome. He stepped out the back door, on the stoop, and cried. He seldom allowed himself this luxury. His therapist usually pursed her lips when they talked about it. “It isn’t healthy to hold that in, Remus.” He ignored this advice; he listened to most of what she said, and this particular protection had kept him alive.

Yet today found him crying quietly outside his childhood home. He prayed Hope and Sirius would be too engaged with each other to notice or care. He cried for Sirius, and his mother, and for himself. For Harry, for the Weasleys, for Molly. A red flower peeked up through a crack in the cement, promising spring and blood, and Remus wasn’t ready. He knew it as he heard his sobs like they were someone else’s, far away.

He knew it as the door opened and his mother and Sirius both stepped out. He tried to smile up at them, and had to laugh a little, but there was no hiding this. His chest contracted in an all-too-familiar way at the looks of concern on both their faces. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, still trying his best to smile, “You two are meant to be catching up. I’m sorry. You can go back inside if you want.”

They sat on either side of him, probably the two people he loved most in the world, and each put an arm around him. “Remus, dear,” Hope soothed, “What is it? What’s wrong?” He had no answer for her. If she didn’t know, how could he explain?

Sirius knew. He didn’t try to say anything false, no comfort or promises. Remus kept trying to apologize, and Sirius kept quieting him. Their hands weighed on him and kept him from floating off. Sirius squeezed Remus’s shoulder and whispered, “This is allowed, Moony. You’re allowed this.” No other words could have made Remus sob harder. 

 

After that visit, Remus made sure Sirius saw Hope again, and Sunday tea became a weekly ritual. He began to encourage Padfoot’s sojourns where before he warned Sirius from straying beyond the house. He himself went out more often. He saw Meredith again; some morbid part of him wanted her and Sirius to meet, though he knew neither would agree and it would end disastrously. He took Sirius as Padfoot one day to their old neighborhood, where Agatha still served sandwiches on the corner, where their old building crumbled but still held tenants, where Hank seemed no longer to live. 

Agatha nearly dropped a platter of sandwiches on seeing Remus. She was so surprised she seemed not even to mind the enormous dog trotting into her restaurant.  _ “Remus Lupin?  _ I’ll be damned if that isn’t you. Bloody hell, I--” Sandwiches forgotten, she ran to hug him. “Jesus, it must be ten years, at least,” she said, her voice muffled in his shoulder. Sirius barked happily at her; she did not respond in kind, frowning disdainfully down at him. “If it was anyone else, love, I’d kick you out with that thing.”

Remus laughed; tears were undeniably welling up in his eyes. “Lord, Agatha, it’s good to see you. I hope you’ll excuse the dog. Service animal.” Sirius whined up at him.

She eyed him skeptically. “What kind of service?”

Remus remembered the clear-eyedness that he both loved and resented in Agatha. “I’ll tell you about it someday. Now, you don’t still serve that roast beef, do you…”

Afterwards, back in the relative safety of the basement kitchen at Grimmauld Place, Remus and Sirius reminisced. “How old was Hank when we met him, do you suppose?” Remus asked. He was trying to wrangle a tomato back between the bread of his sandwich.

“Lord, I don’t know. I was an atrocious guesser of age, then, don’t you think? Maybe he was forty. Maybe sixty.”

“I’d guess closer to sixty. I know his ex--what was his name? Patrick?--was on pension, and he was older than Hank but not by much.” He laughed suddenly. “Do you remember the first time Hank went to Brighton after we’d met him?”

Sirius snorted into his chips. “When we both thought he’d been murdered or kidnapped or something, just because he wasn’t on the stoop one morning, and so we fancied ourselves detectives, right? Must have scared Patrick shitless, maybe, two ragged reckless kids knocking down his door.”

Remus kicked Sirius’s leg under the table and grinned, eyebrows high. “I doubt I knocked down anyone’s door. I probably couldn’t quite keep you from doing it.” Sirius wrinkled his nose, but shrugged, acquiescing to this likelier scenario. Remus gazed at him as he stood to tidy up, cleaning both of their dishes and whistling a little. He was so level at this moment, and Remus felt another pang of anger that he had listened to Dumbledore for so long. What kept Sirius locked in his mind if not being locked in this house? A single day out in London, even unable to talk to anyone, and he was joking and whistling in the kitchen. “Come here,” he said as Sirius finished up. 

Sirius obliged, approaching Remus and drying his hands on his shirttails. His face was content and open, perhaps a little confused. Remus stood and looked down at Sirius, placing a hand on his neck. “I love you very much,” he said. “It feels like a good time to remind you.”

Sirius’s smile unfurled slowly in return. “It feels like a good time to be reminded.” He kissed Remus’s jawline and made his way to Remus’s mouth. His lips hovered there as he whispered, “I love you more than anything,” before closing the distance and meeting Remus’s patient kiss.

 

Breaking rules had always been good for Sirius, and Remus felt wholly justified in allowing him to wander more freely as his mood grew better. They were careful, and Sirius was always Padfoot, but Remus still knew that this was, for him, a rebellion born of resentment.

Dumbledore knew, too, eventually.

Remus was in his office at Hogwarts following a brutal three-day mission. He sat across the desk from Dumbledore, reporting what little there was to report. “A few women were convinced. I’ll put you in touch with them, of course.” He gingerly touched a spot on his forehead he imagined must be bruising impressively. “Otherwise, no luck. Jack Pearson is stirring up a lot of trouble with the southern pack, and most of them are either on his side or indifferent.” He said his piece, and then began to stand. “I apologize, Albus, but I’m exhausted. I’m going to fall asleep in your office if I don’t leave now.”

Dumbledore initially said nothing, but gestured for Remus to remain; Remus sat heavily back down. The chair was absurd, far too low for a grown man of Remus’s height and built to be as uncomfortable as possible. Dumbledore, on the other hand, seemed at his leisure, leaning back in his stuffed chair. He seemed to tower over Remus, despite the latter’s several-inch advantage in height. Finally, Dumbledore spoke over his steepled fingers. “Remus, I’m afraid I’m quite disappointed.” 

In another world, perhaps if he were Sirius Black, Remus would have scoffed or sneered and torn off his sleeve to show the cut that wouldn’t stop oozing green and thrown off his shoe to show four toes where five had been a week ago. Internally he fumed at the nerve of Dumbledore, to choose disappointment despite everything Remus faced on every mission. Externally, he merely raised his eyebrows and asked mildly, “Disappointed?”

Both men seemed aware that the conversation teetered on a cliff. It became clear to Remus that Dumbledore wanted to push it off the edge. “Remus, I am old but I am not a fool,” he said quietly, still looking steadily in Remus’s eyes. “I thought you could be trusted to keep Sirius safe. It pains me to imagine that I was mistaken.”

Remus clenched a fist as his stomach flipped.  _ That’s  _ what this was about. He took a moment to collect himself before replying. “Sirius is safe. I have done nothing to endanger him or let him endanger himself.”

“Do you truly believe that, Remus?” This was one of Dumbledore’s favorite tricks, of course, and every time he repeated Remus’s name, Remus had to fight the instinct to sit up straighter and  _ yes sir  _  his way through the conversation. “Have you deluded yourself so far as to imagine the world is hospitable to Sirius Black once more? Or perhaps you imagine that you can protect him?”

Remus stood again, and began to pace slowly. “I’m sorry, sir--I’m sorry, Albus, but you’re wrong about this. You haven’t seen him. That  _ house  _ isn’t hospitable to Sirius. I know I can’t protect him from what’s in it. But I can help him escape it, at least a little.” The carpet underfoot was tall, impenetrable and with little give as his boots landed on it. 

Dumbledore began to idly sort through some papers. “You are endangering him, Remus, and the Order as well. Try to remember what we do this for.”

Months of pent up resentment broke free. “You endangered him the moment you decided, and god knows why, to use that bloody house and lock him in. You haven’t been there in months, Albus, but I wish you had been there every time he slumped in front of Walburga’s screaming portrait. I wish you’d been there when I had to wrestle a knife out of his hands. I wish you’d been there when he nearly killed me because he thought I was Orion.” Remus was breathing heavily by now, clutching the back of the chair. Albus’s eyes were inscrutable. “I don’t understand,” Remus continued, desperation now entering his voice. “I simply don’t understand why you deem it so necessary that he stay in that house for the rest of his life.”

Albus finally stood. Hands clasped behind his back, he turned from Remus to look out the window. The afternoon began to dim but a chorus of birds remained. “There is blood magic deep in the foundation of that house. What else do you think kept Harry safe there, or the Weasleys, or you? Why else would our meetings be held there? Sirius is tied to that house in ways he does not understand, and we need that house. His continued residence--”

“That’s not good enough,” Remus said flatly. Defying his own expectations, he felt, for once, no knot in his stomach or vise around his chest as he contradicted Dumbledore. “That is not a good enough answer for you slowly killing Sirius. When you told me to take him back there, you said to tell him he had a choice. I’m using that now. Yes, we will stay, but you will not hold him prisoner. If there’s nothing else you need from me, since I’ve given you my report, I’ll be off.” One bird remained singing while the others had fallen gradually silent. Remus glanced out the window, but couldn’t find it.

Dumbledore turned around, and Remus was surprised to see the faint traces of a smile on his face. “I won’t pretend I agree, Remus, because I think you are making a foolish mistake. But--” his eyes shone. “It is truly admirable for you to so fiercely love him, still, after everything. I admire your courage in that regard.”

Remus was taken aback and had no response. He held Dumbledore’s gaze for another moment before nodding in recognition. “Goodbye, Albus,” he said, and disapparated. 

 

Spring seeped over London. The news grew worse and worse, and Sirius, once more engaged in the workings of the war, wrote frequently to Madeye, McGonagall, and Arthur Weasley. Remus did his best not to think about the war when he wasn’t actively on a mission. He wasn’t sure how else to preserve himself, and Sirius understood. 

April drew on. Dumbledore vanished from Hogwarts. Sirius wrote furiously. It was all he could do, and he threw himself into it. Remus grew happier and wearier than he’d been since moving to Grimmauld Place. Sirius tended to his injuries when called for, be they physical or otherwise. He seemed to remember, after fifteen years, the exact science of soothing Remus.

One particularly bad morning found Remus incapable of leaving bed as anxiety rested on his chest like a smug, obese cat with its claws out. For a few hours he passed it off as exhaustion, but as noon approached, Sirius sat at the foot of the bed. He was wearing a sweater of Remus’s, green and friendly, and he placed a hand on Remus’s ankle. “Moony?”

Remus flinched at the touch and at the sound, but tried to smile a little. “Yes?”

Sirius sighed and held his gaze. “Moony, what’s happening in your head right now?”

Remus shut his eyes. “Nothing. Just tired.”

“I  _ know  _ this, Remus. I know you, remember?”

Remus tried hard to breathe regularly. It made things worse. He hated that Sirius could see this. “I’m fine--” he started, but choked on his words. He curled into himself.

“It’s okay,” Sirius said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it managed to tether Remus back to the room. “It’s okay to feel this. What are you thinking?”

He wasn’t, really. It was physical more than anything, which was why it was so frightening. There was nothing to reason with, no counter argument because there was no argument in the first place. He tried to articulate this to Sirius; he probably did poorly. Finally he said simply, “I’m scared.”

Sirius reached for Remus’s hand, letting Remus decide whether to hold it. Nothing else was solid, or maybe it was all too solid, so he took Sirius’s hand and squeezed it tightly. Sirius spoke, and his voice cracked a little. “You are safe, I promise you. You are safe here, and now, and I’m with you. What do you need right now?”

Remus tried to quiet the buzz in his mind to focus on the question. “Water. And…” It was like the cat on his chest dug its claws in as he tried to ask Sirius for something.  _ I am allowed this. I can ask for this.  _ “I need you to stay and hold on. And talk.” 

Sirius stood, only reluctantly letting Remus’s hand go. “I’ll get water and then I’ll come back and do that.” And he did. By two, Remus was asleep; by five, he was awake; by seven, he was laughing in the kitchen as Sirius cooked for him.

 

So balance was restored. It was tenuous, and everything outside the walls they had created was uncertain, but between them a newer, sweeter understanding grew. 

There was nowhere for Remus to travel to that moon, for the first time in several months. As it drew closer, Sirius hovered and buzzed in preparation. The last time Remus had transformed at Grimmauld Place had been in November, and Sirius had passed out drunk long before the sun set. This return to normalcy--what they counted as normalcy, or what they had counted as normalcy fifteen years ago--set Remus at ease. “You need to eat  _ something,”  _ Sirius admonished him the evening of the moon. Remus’s appetite always fled the approaching wolf, and he was listlessly pushing his supper around on his plate. “You know it’s worse if you don’t eat, doesn’t anything sound good? There’s time to run out, still, if you want.”

Remus smiled at his plate. “Not much time. I’ll be okay.” He took a conciliatory bite of potato. “I’ve done this a time or two, you know.”

Sirius kept flitting around the kitchen, but paused to spare Remus a withering look; Remus snorted. “Yes, you’ve  _ done  _ this before, obviously, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat, at least. And what about supplies, for the morning, bandages and things? Are you stocked up? I’ll check the medicine cabinet.”

Remus called to Sirius as he started for the bathroom upstairs. “Pads, it’s fine, I promise. I’ve  got everything I might need. I don’t anticipate anything going wrong, anyhow.”

Sirius whirled back around. “Of course you don’t  _ anticipate  _ it, you never  _ anticipate  _ something going wrong, but for Christ’s sake, Remus, look at your bloody foot from last time. I’m sure you didn’t  _ anticipate  _ that.”

Remus instinctually curled his left foot, his missing toe like a song he’d forgotten the words to. “Last time I was fighting off four other wolves. Tonight I intend to curl up next to one dog. You don’t need to worry so much.”

Sirius didn’t answer for a moment as he sat down across from Remus. He picked up his hand and looked Remus in the eyes. “Let me. Okay?” He pressed Remus’s knuckles to his lips. “Let me do this for you.”

Remus seemed always to be overcome with emotion these days; it was a new development, and one which his therapist lauded but he himself feared. With these simple words of Sirius’s, Remus found tears welling in his eyes. Not trusting his voice, he simply nodded as the corners of his mouth tugged upwards.

Having cast what precautionary spells they deemed necessary, they waited until the transformation began. Sirius immediately transformed himself, and as Remus was forced to surrender mentally and physically to the wolf, he did not worry. There was Padfoot, waiting to greet and calm him, 

 

Remus woke tangled up in Sirius. He didn’t open his eyes, not for several minutes, because he wanted to memorize how this felt. The exact temperature of Sirius’s arm draped over him, the precise amount of air Sirius exhaled with each breath, the specific texture of his too-quickly aged face. And then Remus opened his eyes, because he wanted to look at Sirius. And when he did, he found Sirius, awake, looking back. “Good morning,” Remus murmured.

Sirius’s response was a small smile and a smaller kiss. “Good morning. Last night was so easy. Best dog-sitting job I ever had.”

Remus laughed. “The wolf was probably tired. And glad to see a friend.” He tried to sit up; his back cracked, and it was only then that he realized they were on the hardwood floor. A glance out the window showed a grey, pre-dawn light. “Why don’t we go on the roof?” he suggested.

Sirius yawned but stood. He offered Remus his hand and lifted him off the floor, and they floated up the stairs, out Sirius’s bedroom window, and onto the roof. The winter had been long and cold and their habit of lying on this rooftop had faded and vanished over the months, but this morning they returned to it. It was like no time had passed since last summer as they settled reflexively into the same shape they always had, Sirius’s head on Remus’s chest, his feet curling over Remus’s legs. “Thank you for last night,” Remus said softly. “It was so much easier. Thank you.”

Sirius sighed. “I’m sorry it’s been so long, I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Must be months. But I’m glad...I’m glad we’re better. I’m better.” He paused, and his forehead furrowed as he took one of Remus’s hands in his own and seemed to examine it. “I still don’t understand things, most of the time, anymore. But you make me quiet.” 

Remus smiled, though Sirius couldn’t see it. “And you make me happy.”

Sirius glanced up at him. “Do I, though? I know I’m...I know. I know what I am, and I’m sorry for it. You shouldn’t have had to deal with it, all this time, when I couldn’t even be with you for the moon.” There was a way Sirius had of talking, sometimes--an incredible confidence in his own worthlessness. It was a jarring tone to hear, always, though Remus had been hearing it since he was twelve. 

“Padfoot. Sirius.” Remus spoke each name like the prayer it was. “You make me happy. It isn’t easy, or, it hasn’t been, always. But there’s no one else for me.” Sirius turned away and hunched his shoulders, and Remus sat up a little.  _ “Sirius.  _ Look at me.” He obliged. “I know you don’t believe it, but you’re a miracle. You’re right, that this year wasn’t all easy, but when it mattered you were there. You’re here now. No one else could have lived your life and still taken care of me.”

Sirius said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Remus knew he hadn’t fully convinced Sirius, because he hadn’t fully convinced himself, but that wasn’t the point. It might not have been wholly accurate, his depiction of the last year, but it was true. He kissed Sirius and it was quiet and sweet. The sky graced them with a single raindrop, then another. “Shit,” Sirius laughed. “Shit, let’s go in.”

Remus shut his eyes and turned his face upwards. “Not yet. The storm might pass.”


End file.
